Tall Heels
an excerpt

The sky was dark, and the stars glittered coldly in the distance. Tractor-trailers passed sporadically on the distant highway, their whistling and flapping noises slightly amplified in the chilly air. The slats of the park bench dug into my back, and I shifted around, trying to get comfortable. A slight breeze shifted the leaves in the branches above me, and I watched with vague dread as my breath rose over my face in a dense cloud, hanging for moments before slowly vanishing into the black sky.

A shiver ran itself down my spine, and I hugged my arms around myself, trying in vain to make the zipper of my jacket go just a little higher towards my chin. I didn’t want to admit that it wasn’t the wood of the bench that had woken me up, but soon I would have to. This was the first night it had been too cold for me to sleep, cold enough that it had brought me out of unconsciousness to lie in the dark and contemplate my fate. I wished I was still asleep.

Sitting up, I curled my feet underneath myself, searching for warmth that wasn’t there. My long, matted hair fell around my shoulders and in front of my face, and I tucked it into my collar like a scarf. I rubbed my hands together slowly, remembering the conversation I’d had with Luis a few hours previously. He had warned me it would be cold tonight.

“Are you sure you don’t want a place to sleep tonight?” he asked with his soft Spanish accent.

I made a face. “It’s only September, man, don’t sweat it. It’s not like it’s winter.”

“You know I will not ask where are you from, Dylan, but you may forget how cold it gets here. That is easy when you have lived inside every winter.”

“Gracias, amigo, pero no,” I told him firmly. I took sympathy from no one, even my best friend. Besides, like I said, it was only September. How cold could it possibly get so early in the season?

Too cold, I answered myself now, silently. I stood up and did a lazy sort of jig up and down, just to get my blood going. The clouds in front of my face rose a little faster and a little thicker, and my feet seemed to fall on the ground harder than they normally did. Pulling my tattered blanket off the bench and wrapping it around my shoulders, I set off in no particular direction. The blanket used to be red plaid, but now it was more like a vague blocky pattern. I wondered absently what would happen if I put it in a washing machine; it would probably come out as dust. Then again, if I had access to a washing machine, the blanket would be the last thing to go in. My clothes would be first. Hell, I might actually be first myself.

Walking aimlessly doesn’t really lend itself to walking briskly enough to shake the cold. I speeded up and found myself heading for the overpass above the river, not the new one on the main road, but the old one that cars were no longer allowed to travel. It was probably two or three in the morning, and it was accordingly quiet. The mournful moaning of the trucks on the freeway mixed with the rustling of wind in leaves remained the only things I could hear as I crossed the grassy park and climbed through the gardens. I passed benches and flowerpots and paving stones, all having had their heyday many years before. Without so much as a glance, I stepped around the brick that I knew was waiting, half-buried in the dirt, to trip me. I could walk this place in my sleep. It was too bad I wasn’t sleeping anymore.